


The Long Goodnight

by Willow1977



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Goodbyes, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, get out the tissue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29912652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow1977/pseuds/Willow1977
Summary: He had waited a long time for her.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Minerva McGonagall/Elphinstone Urquart
Kudos: 17





	The Long Goodnight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot based on a prompt.

She was quite familiar to Him. 

Death.

He had been stalking her since she was a mere child, and she had cursed him violently at the murders of her beloved husband and brothers at the hands of Death Eaters. She had fallen apart when he had taken James and Lily from her, leaving young Harry Potter an orphan with such a tremendous burden on his tiny little shoulders to bear.

Death, of course, knew her. The raven-haired professor turned Headmistress of Hogwarts with vivid blue eyes and a fondness for green robes, her square-shaped framed glasses, and a crooked hat was well known to him. He had only been attempting to catch her for the past seventy-odd years. 

He had repeatedly made numerous failed, and half-baked attempts to bring this Animagus to heel and failed miserably each and every time. She kept somehow keeping his minions from returning with her at heel. He sent different reapers to fetch her, and none managed to do the job, saying when they returned, that she scared the heck out of them. 

He had even attempted, repeated to remove some of the more... Special ones around her, but damn it, they seemed to defeat him, to the point one, a Mister Potter was now his bloody Master.

So, after the last time, he had watched, and waited, and let her live her life. Let her educate the wizards and witches of this world, become the honorary grandmother of the Potter children. 

The day would come when he would send the right one to fetch her at last. 

Today was Minerva’s 115th birthday. 

She had had The Potters, Harry, and his wife Hermione over for tea, with their children had come and given her hugs and gifts of cake and cookies that she knew she would never eat but she treasured, anyway. 

She was curled up by the fire in the cottage she had once shared with her late husband, rest his soul, in Hogsmeade, tartan blanket tucked around her as she sipped her tea spiked with a generous spot of Irish Whiskey she had gotten from Dean and Ginny Thomas as a birthday present. 

He came around just around midnight and held his hand out to her and simply said, “It’s time, Minerva. Everyone has waited long enough. “

She took his hand and looked back, seeing the old frail body she had left behind, and sighed.

“Must I? “

“Yes, Minnie. It’s time.” 

The hood of Death’s last and final reaper fell, and she gasped when she saw the face of the man who she had married and been widowed from for decades. 

Her Elphinstone.

“Elphinstone?”

“Yes Minnie, It’s time to come home.”

And then, quietly, Death sighed as Minerva McGonagall finally came home.


End file.
